One way to get employees to interact and be productive is to make them feel like they're working within the confines of a
social networking site. You can manage such a feat by using Bitrix24, which combines traditional
task, document, and work/time management with social networking apps.
This web-based tool offers tasks, files, calendars, blogs, workgroups,
photos, task comments, likes, and more.

For the very small business, the Free version of Bitrix24 is ideal. It offers:

12 users

Online storage of 5 Gb

Social communications

Tasks and projects

Calendars

Files and documents

CRM

The next level up is the Standard edition ($99.00/month), which ups the users to
unlimited and gives you 50 Gb of storage. With the
Professional edition ($199.00/month), you get more features, including records and time management, meetings, reports, and a unique domain name. There is also an Enterprise edition of Bitrix24.

For most small businesses, the Free account is sufficient.
You'll have a full-blown CRM that includes the right amount of
social-centric features to get your employees engaged. With the help of
the Activity Stream, your company will be constantly updated with
what's going on. Let's set up Bitrix24, and see how well it can serve your
needs.

Set up your Bitrix24 account

To sign up for a Free account, go to the Bitrix24 site
and enter the address you want associated with the site; a confirmation code/link will be sent to that email address. Click the link for the confirmation code, enter information for your
Bitrix24 account, and click the Create button (Figure A). It won't take long for the site to be set up.

Now click the Open Intranet button and log in to
your site with the email address and password you used to set up the
account. When you log in, you will receive two emails, both of which notifying you that two tasks have been created:

Fill in profile data

Invite new employees

These are the first steps you should take with Bitrix24. So... let's take care of them.

Fill in profile data

The profile data is information about the user. You can access this either by clicking the link in the
email (sent from Bitrix24 to the account used to create your intranet),
or by logging in to your Bitrix24 account and then following these steps:

Click your name in the top right corner.

Select My Profile from the drop-down.

Click Edit Profile.

Fill out all of the necessary information (Figure B).

Click Save.

Figure B

Invite new employees

To invite new employees to your Bitrix24 intranet, you need to do the following:

Log in to your Bitrix24 site as the admin.

Click Employees (under Company in the left navigation).

Click the Invite Users button in the top right corner (Figure C).

Enter a comma-separated list of email addresses in the resulting window.

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About Jack Wallen

Jack Wallen is an award-winning writer for TechRepublic and Linux.com. He’s an avid promoter of open source and the voice of The Android Expert. For more news about Jack Wallen, visit his website jackwallen.com.

Full Bio

Jack Wallen is an award-winning writer for TechRepublic and Linux.com. He’s an avid promoter of open source and the voice of The Android Expert. For more news about Jack Wallen, visit his website jackwallen.com.